3/19/07
Appearing on the
Great Seal of the United States, approved by Congress in 1782, are these words:
Novus Ordo Seclorum (Latin for "New Order
of the Ages"). This motto was
proposed by Charles Thomson, the Latin expert who was
involved in the design of the Great Seal of the United States, to
signify "the beginning of the new American Era" as of the date of the
Declaration of Independence. The phrase is taken from the fourth Eclogue
of the pagan Roman poet Virgil,
which contains a passage that reads:
Ultima Cumaei venit iam
carminis aetas;
magnus ab integro saeclorum
nascitur ordo.
iam redit et Virgo, redeunt
Saturnia regna,
iam nova progenies caelo
demittitur alto.
Translated, it reads “"The last time of prophecy has
come to the Cumaean Sibyl; a brand new great order of the ages is born;
for now the Virgin and the age of Saturn have returned; now a new Child has been sent
from the heavens." This indicates
that to many of America’s Founders, the age the pagan Romans looked forward to,
consisting of a return of the Virgin and the age of Saturn, began with the
creation of the United States.
This sentiment was echoed in newspapers at the time, as evidened below (from http://community-2.webtv.net/westernmind/WASHINGTONDC/ ):
“In July of 1788, the City Gazette of Charleston
ran an article called The Tenth Pillar which announced the ratification of the
Constitution. It announced the return of the golden age of Saturn. In the
article we can see ten pillars of classical orders holding up a roof. On the
roof is Fame trumpeting the announcement. Fame is Pheme, Greek Goddess of fame
and report, daughter to Earth Goddess Gaia. At this point, there are still
three states that haven't ratified the Constitution but the two-thirds majority
has been reached. At this time, Fame has a job to do! It is now the time of
proclamation of, as our Great Seal says in Latin, this new nation is a New Order
For The Ages.
On August 2, 1789, the Massachusetts Centinel
published an article titled Redeunt Saturnia
Regna which heralded the return of the Saturnian Age as the eleventh
pillar was raised under the Constitution. The SATURNIAN AGE had returned as far
as these people are concerned. The Golden Era of Greece and Rome that was
thought to be extirpated and extinguished by Christian religious and
intellectual intolerance had returned. The article's illustration showed each
state as an allegorically raised classical pillar which supports the Dome of
the Constitution. There is a poem below it which speaks of eleven stars, eleven
columns under a dome, the house that the Goddess Columbia built for Freedom,
and Wisdom, Religion, Justice, Law and Peace in the return of the Saturnian
Age.”
Jeffrey
Meyer, in his book Myths in Stone: Religious Dimensions of Washington, D.C. (see http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8948/8948.intro.html
) documents how the Founding Fathers
conceived their enterprise in the founding of the USA:
“In the America of the Founding Fathers, civil religion was frequently expressed by politicians and preachers and enacted in rituals such as the Masonic rite of laying the cornerstone of the Capitol. Washington, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and others believed that the deity was actively interested in the success of the American experiment as a model that could eventually serve as a shining example for the rest of the world. They considered this novel experiment in freedom and democracy an epochal event, calling it a novus ordo seclorum (a new order in the world) on the Great Seal they devised for the United States. Nothing like it had been seen before, although there were brief classical foreshadowings in democratic Greece and republican Rome. Already in 1787 Representative James Wilson prophesied that the federal government would "lay a foundation for erecting temples of Liberty in every part of the earth."[Note 13] As he lay dying in June of 1826, Thomas Jefferson wrote to the mayor of Washington, echoing the faith of the Founding Fathers that this new democratic form of government might be "to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all)" a signal to arouse men to burst their chains of slavery.[Note 14] This faith may be seen everywhere in the city but is nowhere more eloquently and fully expressed than in the art and architecture of the Capitol.”
This conception of the USA thus found expression in the architecture, as noted at http://community-2.webtv.net/westernmind/WASHINGTONDC/ :
“According to the Library of Congress' online
exhibit article on the conceiving and building of the Capitol Building, titled The Temple of Liberty, Thomas Jefferson was
inspired by classical temple architecture for the pattern of the Capitol. A
source of this was a print of the Pantheon in Claude-Antoine Jombert, 1779 book
called "Les edifices antiques de Rome". The print, called Elevation de la face du Pantheon, a Rome was
done by Antoine DesGodetz. Being classically educated and a son of the
Enlghtenment, this is not surprising. Jefferson was well read regarding
classical philosophers and cited them many times in his letters. A print in
Robert Wood's 1753 book, The Ruins of Palmyra impressed Jefferson for
the Capitol's new east portico design. The print was Wood's conception of the Temple of the Sun (small image below), which
is the temple of Bel, known also as Ba'al, the Sky and Sun God and Father in
the 'Trinity of the Sun God'. Iarbibol, with crown of sun, was the Messenger of
the Sun, and Agribol was of the Moon…The Roman Pantheon, with it's classical
portico and pediment, was the model for the Capitol's original dome and
rotunda. Classical temples and their libraries were the models for the
buildings of Washington, DC. Statues and sculpted friezes of mythological
deities and allegorical figures became the models for Washington's neoclassical
statues and friezes. Greco-Roman classical architecture, symbolic of democracy
and knowledge, suited the American Enlightenment because the founders saw
themselves as lighting and carrying the torch of knowledge and wisdom that was
extinquished in late antiquity. Thomas Jefferson had a vision of education,
science and wisdom that was expressed in classical architecture and
enlightenment ideals. America's capitol city was to be the new Rome and Athens
because America was reviving the democratic and educational philosophies of the
classical age.”
If the creation of the USA ushered in a renewed “Virgin and the age of Saturn”
the pagan Romans longed for, as the information above suggests, then we should
ask: who is this Virgin and this Saturn?
Saturn was the Roman god they celebrated in their Saturnalia. As noted in the article at http://www.puritans.net/news/holydays120505.htm , “The Saturnalia (which has much in common with the Kronia, c. Jul. 30) is preceded by the Festival for Tellus and the Consualia and is followed by the Opalia, Angeronalia (Dec. 21), Larentalia and Festival for Sol Invictus, resulting in a holiday season lasting from Dec. 13 to Dec. 25 (the ancient Winter Solstice). The festival begins with a formal sacrifice at the temple of Saturn (whose name was derived from satus = sowing), which is conducted Graeco ritu (by Greek rite), that is, with uncovered head. First the woolen bonds are untied from the statue of Saturn. Next there is a festive banquet at which people dress informally, wearing the synthesis (perhaps a light dressing-gown) and pilei (soft caps), which may be made out of paper (Guhl & Koner 481). At the end of the banquet everyone shouts, "Io Saturnalia!" At home it is a period of general relaxation, and in ancient times, the master waited on the servants at meal times. The household chooses the Saturnalicius Princeps (Master of the Saturnalia), the "Lord of Misrule," who is free to order others to do his bidding. On the last day it is common to exchange small gifts, such as sigillaria (small pottery dolls) for the children and cerei (candles) for adults.” Alexander Hislop, in The Two Babylons , helpfully adds this information: “In the Roman mythology, Pluto was regarded as on a level, for honour, with Jupiter (OVID, Fasti); and in Egypt, we have evidence that Osiris, "the seed of the woman," was the "Lord of heaven," and king of hell, or "Pluto" (WILKINSON; BUNSEN); and it can be shown by a large induction of particulars (and the reader has somewhat of the evidence presented in this volume), that he was none other than the Devil himself, supposed to have become incarnate; who, though through the first transgression, and his connection with the woman, he had brought sin and death into the world, had, nevertheless, by means of them, brought innumerable benefits to mankind. As the name Pluto has the very same meaning as Saturn, "The hidden one," so, whatever other aspect this name had, as applied to the father of the gods, it is to Satan, the Hidden Lord of hell, ultimately that all came at last to be traced back; for the different myths about Saturn, when carefully examined, show that he was at once the Devil, the father of all sin and idolatry, who hid himself under the disguise of the serpent,--and Adam, who hid himself among the trees of the garden,--and Noah, who lay hid for a whole year in the ark,--and Nimrod, who was hid in the secrecy of the Babylonian Mysteries.” (http://philologos.org/__eb-ttb/sect22.htm)
The Virgin is the goddess worshipped by the Romans as the Queen of Heaven. This, along with many other aspects of pagan Roman religion, appear to have their origin in false Babylonian religion. “The Babylonians, in their popular religion, supremely worshipped a Goddess Mother and a Son, who was represented in pictures and in images as an infant or child in his mother's arms… From Babylon, this worship of the Mother and the Child spread to the ends of the earth, “ wrote Alexander Hislop in The Two Babylons.
The return of the “Virgin and the age of Saturn” is strikingly similar to what we read of the end time Babylon as it was foreshadowed in the prophecies of Isaiah:
“… thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!… O Lucifer, son of the morning!… For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” (Isaiah 14:4, 12-14)
“O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: [there is] no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate…O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms…O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms…[thou that art] given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I [am], and none else beside me; I shall not sit [as] a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children...” (Isaiah 47:1-5)
And as it was further revealed in the prophecy of Revelation:
“MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH…How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow...” (Revelation 17-18)
This end time Babylon is well symbolized by the Statue of Liberty: Lady Liberty holding up a lighted torch at its height (see http://www.puritans.net/news/usa031307.htm ). And the symbolism reflects the sad reality of what has happened, including the very important role played by various Roman Catholic and Enlightenment parties in its inception, as documented in various books and articles at www.puritans.net .
Satan’s reign is indeed only that of a morning star (from which term
‘Lucifer’ has been translated), but we can look forward to the reign of the
true “Sun of righteousness [who will] arise with healing in his wings.”
(Malachi 4:2). Satan’s “new order of
the ages” will end, but Christ’s will never end.
